Book’s Books is now open for business. The first trailer has just been released for Bookish, the much-anticipated British cozy crime drama from Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss, and it introduces a new, unconventional detective stepping in to help the police solve cases. In addition to creating the series, Gatiss stars as Gabriel Book, an antiquarian bookshop owner in 1946 post-war London who brings his knowledge from his extensive collection of books to offer a different angle on crime. Despite the danger, he dives headfirst into mystery with a system for solving murders that makes him the go-to guy for answers. Consisting of six episodes, the series is slated to air on UKTV’s U&Alibi later this year.
The trailer immediately introduces the colorful world of Bookish as Book’s wife, played by Bridgerton‘s Polly Walker, enters the store to inform him of a discovery in “suspicious circumstances,” his favorite kind of circumstances. While he presents himself as a humble bookshop owner, he’s just as likely to be examining human remains in a back room or having tea with officers to discuss puzzling crimes. It’s a chaotic world out there, though, and there are more than a few shady figures with deathly glares that may have it out for him as he gets too close to the truth. What follows is a montage that feels like a stylish throwback, with Book facing cases ranging from high society to killings in the street. All he wants is for inspectors to leave no details unaccounted for, be they “salacious, gory, or vaguely scandalous.”
Bookish appears to have a sense of humor and plenty of lighthearted charm beyond its murders for fans of cozy crime. There are also, however, deeper layers to Book and the world around him. For one, his marriage to Trottie is a lavender one, meant to hide his homosexuality at a time in London when that would’ve been criminalized. It adds to the danger of a city that’s already in a complicated place with soldiers returning from war and looking to a promising future while also confronting some troubling undercurrents in the present. In an interview with Deadline back in March, Gatiss explained how his new series goes beyond the cozy crime genre while still featuring a lot of aspects people love about it:
“It’s become a bit of an instant cliche, ‘cozy crime’, but I don’t think it has to be. It can be welcoming, and this has period elements that people love, and they love a world where you can’t solve crimes with computers. But it’s also a world that’s fractured and dangerous.”
via Collider